1954: Opens first FedMart membership warehouse store in building owned by his mother-in-law at 2380 Main St.

1955: Expands to Phoenix, then Texas, New Mexico.

1975: Sells company to Hugo Mann, owner of a chain of German stores.

1976: Opens first Price Club on Morena Boulevard in San Diego and proceeds to expand to other states and Canada, Mexico, resulting in 97 stores by 1993.

1979: The Price Co. goes public and is listed on Nasdaq in 1982.

1982: Forms Price Family Charitable Fund and supports a variety of causes, including a high school fellowship program in memory of Robert’s son Aaron, who died of a brain tumor at age 14 in 1989; the Price Center student building at UC San Diego; and the Urban Village developed in 1996 by CityLink Investment Corp. to revitalize City Heights.

1995: Opens first Price Club-like store in Panama City, Panama, with other stores to follow in Latin America.

2009: Dies Dec. 14.

For now, the Price line of reasoning still dominates and here are some of the secrets as told by Robert Price in his book, “Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator”:

The hot dog stand

I had been receiving a number of phone calls from people who wanted to sell hot dogs at the Morena Boulevard exit store. At first, I didn’t think much of the calls, but there were just too many calls to be ignored. Sol, Rick (Libenson, executive vice president for merchandising and Robert’s cousin) and I thought about leasing space to hot dog cart operators, but we decided if anyone was going to sell hot dogs at the Price Club entrance, we should be the ones … The Hebrew National hot dog was an instant hit. The price of a Costco hot dog and soda has remained the same — $1.50 — 36 years later.

Location

I assumed that the (first Price Club) building (opened in 1976) should be located close to the center of the city of San Diego near the main business district to be near business customers. I drove all over the commercial areas of San Diego trying to identify any building that might meet our requirements. We then learned that Rohr Industries had moved out of its 102,000-square-foot warehouse at 4605 Morena Blvd. in the Rose Canyon area of San Diego. The inside of the building looked like the vacant warehouse in the final chase scene from the (1971) movie “The French Connection.”